South Korea Stampede: Sri Lankan man's body to be brought home

COLOMBO (News 1st) - Sri Lanka is taking necessary measures to repatriate the body of the 27-year-old Sri Lankan man who died during the stampede in South Korea during the halloween weekend.

Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, PC told News 1st that relatives of the deceased had requested for the body to be brought back to Sri Lanka.

The Foreign Ministry said that diplomatic staff have been assigned to hospitals, and police stations in Seoul, South Korea to ascertain if more Sri Lankans have been killed, or injured from the tragedy.

The Foreign Ministry, and the Sri Lankan Embassy in South Korea is coordinating such efforts.

Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment P. A. Wimalaweera told News 1st that the Sri Lankan man had not gone to South Korea for employment, but for higher education.

He was identified as 27-year-old Munawwar Mohamed Jinath from Kandy.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Monday promised a thorough investigation into the Halloween crush over the weekend that killed more than 150 people in the capital and plunged the country into a week of mourning.

Officials said the death toll had risen overnight to 154 with 149 injured, 33 of them in serious condition. Citizens from at least two dozen countries were among the dead.

Tens of thousands of party-goers had crowded into narrow streets and alleyways of Seoul's popular Itaewon district on Saturday for the first virtually unrestricted Halloween festivities in three years. Many of the revelers were in their teens or twenties and dressed in costume.

But chaos erupted when people poured into one particularly narrow and sloping alley, even after it was already packed, witnesses said.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has declared a period of national mourning and designated Itaewon a disaster zone, visited a memorial altar near the Seoul city hall and paid his respects to victims on Monday, his office said.

The crush came as Itaewon, a symbol of freewheeling nightlife in the South Korean capital for decades, was starting to thrive after more than two years of COVID-19 restrictions, with trendy restaurants and shops replacing seedy establishments.

The disaster is the country's deadliest since a 2014 ferry sinking that killed 304 people, mainly high school students.